I have a mixed household currently, about a 50/50 split, only 3 systems with anything less than quad cores

to be honest, I think AMD has a good edge in the consumer market right now, especially with the APU being a decent balance of cpu/graphics capabilities. The market being quite multimedia driven these days, and then most users barely being able to check their email still in the year 2013 means performance doesn't matter to the average user since they're system is going to crawl with crapware no matter what you give them.

But really, nowadays, any quad core will do, clockspeed and max performance and not necessarily factors as many will not fully utilize the systems, and thats something that needs to be factored when building a system for a user as well. An intel platform, even an i3 is quite a bit more than building

I just checked neweg, forgive me to choosing the cheapest piece of garbage mobo's that I would never, ever, ever, ever, etc etc, never buy, but for the lowest cost to get an i3 platform, you can save 50$ and get a dual core AMD APU, thats roughly 1/3 the price, or, take that price difference and get a quad-core APU

I think I would rather build a quad core for a user on a budget because most times the extra cores make up for the difference in raw performance for day to day multitasking

I will admit, lately, for myself I've been preferring intel, more because it makes an easier hackintosh and less so for the raw performance advantage since many of my needs revolve around audio and some of the software I use just runs better on Mac. I still have AMD systems in use that are just fine. AMD is still a practical buy, I can't stand going to the store and ask for an AMD cpu and the typical acne-faced teenager says "well you know intel's better", and I hate it even more when they can't even make a valid point as to why.

We all know intel has the performance crown right now, it's been juggled back and forth for years, though not so much in AMD's favor anymore, but still. there's people who fanboy it out, people who stick to what they know, and people who buy whatever is reasonable or fits the bill at the time.

mind you, I'm barely blown away by anything new that comes out anymore. every new launch seems to be the same story or presenting numbers in said fashions to make things seem soo much better than they actually. but maybe i'm getting old, and bitter

OK,
I started out with an Intel based PC about 20 years ago.
never heard of AMD. just bought a PC from RadioShack. 286
upgraded a year later to a new Magnavoux Brand PC also Intell 386

2 years later whole PC got fried by lighting hitting the phone line.
MB/CPU and 1 out of 2 RAM chips where done for...

that's where my DIY years started.
for the next 3 years Intel was the king as I believed all the hype and did not know any better(no technical background what so ever.)
But than I started to get into the IT stuff and found that I can get a better hardware and better performance with some strange and not very known (to me) company named AMD.
Why you say? well :

a comparison in in order:
mid line Intel CPU at the time was Pentium 3, 450Mhz CPU speed with 133Mhz FB running on MB with top BUS speed of 800Mhz
where a mid line AMD CPU where running @ 400Mhz but with 800Mhz FB runing on MB with BUS speed of 1600Mhz (yes double the BUS Speed over Intel)
and that have been the case all this years.
I do not know about you but I think that even though CPU speed is important but the speed of the BUS is important as well.

I had built 2 almost identical rigs once , one using Intel, and one using AMD.
I say almost as AMD CPU was 800Mhz where Intel was hitting 1Ghz but all other specs where same.
same RAM same HDD, same GPU (literally SAME GPU) , the hardware was bought for a special office custom build systems and Proof Of Concept testing. was trying to pick the best setup for an application base.

and AMD out performed Intel on virtually all test WE through at it.
yes benchmarks where in Intel's favor, but real live test using the applications that we intend to run on it shows different picture. that was because our apps where more geared toward RAM and GPU use rather than CPU use speed of communication between various components was more important then the speed with which CPU can crunch numbers.

also for as much as I can remember, AMD have always been a 64 bit capable architecture in all their lines of CPUs and GPUs even when most of the market was just climbing on 32 bit bandwagon.
where Intel have always untill recently segregated 64 bit CPUs for servers only use.

I am not against Intel. they where one of the first out there in the wild west of silicone craziness and survived. but I do not see why everyone is screaming about Intel superiority in everything when there are some other companies that today give you if not better but at very least same performance at lesser cost.

I do think Intel can give you more for less if they want to, but they don't ohh well.

AMD back in the k4 days and up to the early quad core systems were totally viable and it was a toss up as to which was better for you (as you say, in your earlier cases AMD was more suitable)
I had only AMD chips before my current build.

However AMD these days are severely lacking in single threaded performance and only win out in highly threaded tasks these days due to the large number of cores they provide per dollar spent.

As 95% of people coming here are after gaming rigs, Intel is king.

If your looking for a number cruncher on a budget then the AMD hex and more cores win out especially for price.
As for 64 bit.. yes the AMD chips brought in 64 bit capabilities first BUT what used them.. hell there are still relatively few things you'll see a difference in these days, especially if your looking at games.

You really can't compare what a company had 10 - 15 years ago and say that it still applies.

P.S, the i3 listed above has hyper threadding and will provide as many threads as a 4 core APU... not saying it's the better choice for every user.. but anyone looking for games etc will be better on the i3.

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Soullessone21: "Their the only fat bitches I ever want in my wife :)"
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I also think for HTPC if I want to game a little bit without a discreet card the AMD APUs are great at this time, as well as the performance that can be improved from OC and higher RAM speeds on the IGP side of things.

Meh, I have an APU with IGP and I played around with overclocks and faster RAM. It didn't really make a noticeable difference. A discrete card went in pretty quickly once I decided I wanted to make it a console replacement.

At least for Llano, the IGP was pretty useless at gaming. Trinity and Richland may be different. At least, Richland looks like it can hold it's own on some pretty decent games at mid-settings.

That being said, with a discreet graphics card, my APU is very competent at gaming, and it uses less power/produces less heat than the old Phenom II's did, to boot.

I used amd up until conroe core 2's released. after that amd got blown out of the water in basically everything.

They are FINALLY just now years later getting back into the light of the tunnel.

Where i work we are intel authorized retailers most of us do have intel built systems as well but not specifically because of that reason.

My boss went rouge and bought a 8350 fx chip with a nice asus board. and i oc'ed it for him a bit. And to be honest it ran the games i put it through quite well. not quite as fast as my 3770k system but its doing the trick and hes been pretty happy with it.

And for the 100$ cheaper difference some may find that reasonable considering the core count for other tasks.
I honestly think this market could take a turn if developers started truly utilizing more core counts to balance work load of gaming ect.

but until that happens you will have to compromise price vs single thread performance.

This is it.. 3570k would beat the 8350 chip in pretty much everything but rendering etc and for pretty much the same price.
And be far behind in single threaded tasks and significantly enough behind in games.

It really does depend on your usage and budget.

__________________
Random quotes:

AKG: "So please don't piss on people and claim its raining. "
Soullessone21: "Their the only fat bitches I ever want in my wife :)"
DeeraxTheCoolNemo: "I never preSs CaPLoCK I just HiT my keyS so Hard ThEY Crit"

I replaced an old socket 775 celeron with 1gb of ddr ram over the weekend. managed to get the slowest AMD APU available, with an Asus mobo, 4gb ram and a CoolerMaster H100 for under 200$.

I have to say, even with Win XP on it, I was quite impressed with the performance of it given the price. It was for the neighbour across the road, she's 83 years and checks her email and plays facebook games, didn't want to shell shock her putting Win 7 on there, but she's happy.

I'm planning on putting an A10-6700 into my media center over the next few weeks so I can do some light gaming on it. With a 720p TV, after looking over multiple reviews and what not, I figure I should get decent performance for a few games.